Every year for 24 consecutive years the World Series has given us a new champion. Repeating is difficult because of the expanded postseason, a more even distribution of talent and the democracy of analytics and technology, which can level the playing field in non-monetary ways.
The bottom line is there are many ways to win a World Series—from a sixth seed last year (Texas Rangers) to a one seed this year (Los Angeles Dodgers). But there are some lessons we can learn from the 2024 World Series. For instance, the next World Series champion is likely to have elite power. The past five champions all have ranked in the top four in MLB in home runs. As hits have grown scarcer, the home run ball looms larger in deciding games.
Here is what else we learned from the 2024 World Series:
1. Spin is in
The Dodgers threw 41.2% breaking pitches against the Yankees. Since pitch tracking began in 2008, that’s the heaviest dose of spin by any of the 34 World Series teams.
Los Angeles knew the New York offense was predicated on taking pitches and creating count leverage to force pitchers into the zone with fastballs—and hammering them. The Dodgers did not let that happen.
Los Angeles kept the Yankees off balance by throwing the abundance of breaking pitches. The idea was to constantly change speeds to keep hitters uncomfortable. There was no better example than how Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Treinen carved up Aaron Judge in Game 2 (0-for-4, including three strikeouts).
Judge saw 21 pitches in Game 2. He saw the same pitch a second time in a row in the same at-bat only twice—and whiffed both times. Look how Yamamoto and Treinen yo-yoed Judge with pitches as far apart as 21 mph:
The Dodgers expertly executed this back-and-forth style of pitching throughout the series. The Yankees were the No. 1 slugging team against fastballs in the regular season. They had an easy time with the Royals and Guardians in the first two rounds because those teams inexplicably threw them less spin than the Yankees saw in the regular season.
The Dodgers gave the Yankees a whole different look. They threw so much spin that when they did attack with fastballs the Yankees were not on time.
This progression of pitching plans against New York says it all: the way to get the Yankees off the fastball was with increased spin:
2. The Dodgers took Juan Soto off the board.
Before Game 1, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was asked which hitters in the Yankees lineup most concerned him.
“Soto,” Roberts said. Then, looking over the New York lineup card, added, “Soto, Soto, Soto.”
Soto is the best fastball hitter on the planet. Overall in the postseason Soto hit .600 and slugged 1.300 against fastballs.
The Dodgers’ plan for Soto was brutal in its simplicity: never give him a fastball to hit in any meaningful spot. The pennant-winning home run Soto hit off a four-seamer from Hunter Gaddis of Cleveland, one of the most ridiculous pitch calls in recent memory, was fresh in their minds.
The Dodgers threw Soto:
- Only 13 four-seamers in the zone out of 110 pitches in the series. Soto was 3-for-3 on those rare heaters.
- 65% secondary pitches, including cutters. Soto was 1-for-11 against them.
- 58% pitches out of the zone.
Los Angeles preferred pitching to Judge. The plan worked perfectly until Jack Flaherty threw Judge a first-pitch fastball right down Broadway in Game 5.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone accommodated the Dodgers’ plan to take Soto off the board by never tweaking his lineup. He was fully committed to Gleyber Torres-Soto-Judge as the 1-2-3 hitters, a combo that worked well down the stretch. But when Torres and Judge went cold, the lineup remained the same.
Boone could have batted Judge first, with Soto behind him. The Dodgers did that with Shohei Ohtani and the Mets with Francisco Lindor. The idea is to have the whole lineup protect your best hitter, get that hitter to the plate as often as possible and, in the case of Judge just as it was for Lindor, take pressure off a cold hitter by asking him to simply get on base, not produce damage.
Boone said he did think about batting Judge leadoff for Game 4, but opted against it because he did not think it was fair to Torres. But Torres had gone cold. He took the most plate appearances for the Yankees in the series and slashed .143/.250/.333.
With Torres cold and the Dodgers flipping Soto so much spin out of the zone, Soto became a non-factor. He saw four pitches the entire series with a runner in scoring position, including one pitch in the zone. He saw just 10 pitches in the zone with a runner on base.
3. The Dodgers out-executed the Yankees
Years from now people will look at the statistical summary of the 2024 World Series and ask, “How did the Yankees not win?” New York had more hits, more home runs, more walks, more stolen bases, a higher batting average, a better on-base percentage, a lower ERA and a lower WHIP.
To understand why the Yankees lost you had to watch the games. Their fifth-inning collapse in Game 5 was historically awful. But at every turn the Dodgers made plays the Yankees did not. Here are some of the key hidden moments why Los Angeles won the series:
The 10th-inning walk in Game 1 by Gavin Lux.
The Yankees were two outs away from winning Game 1, 4–3. Jake Cousins, facing the 7-8-9 hitters, had just retired Will Smith. Lux was hitless in his last 16 plate appearances. Cousins walked him on five pitches, four of which were nowhere close to the strike zone, including a wild high sinker after four straight sliders. The walk virtually assured the lineup would turn over, and when it did, Boone called on Nestor Cortes, who gave up the grand slam to Freddie Freeman.
Tommy Edman’s trip around the bases in Game 3.
Batting ninth, Edman drew a four-pitch walk from Clarke Schmidt leading off the third. (Yankees pitchers had some terrible walks, and the Dodgers made them pay.) Edman took off for second on his own on a 2-and-2 pitch, allowing him to reach second and stay out of a double play as Ohtani grounded out. He scored on a bloop single because he broke immediately on a perfect read rather than hesitating to see if the ball could be caught.
Kiké Hernández’s baserunning in Game 5.
With runners at first and second in the fifth, Smith hit a ground ball to the right of Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe. Running from second, Hernández bowed his angle to disrupt Volpe’s throwing lane (perfectly legal). Volpe, sidearm, alligator-armed his throw into the dirt and Hernández’s running lane. Third baseman Jazz Chisholm should have been able to secure the ball on a short hop. But he did not work his glove hand through the ball and dropped it.
The three at-bats against Tommy Kahnle in Game 5.
Kahnle threw 27 pitches in the series. Twenty-five of them were changeups. The Dodgers swung and missed only once against him.
Seeing the same pitch over and over—not a nasty swing-and-miss pitch at that—gave the Dodgers an edge. Down 6–5 and down to their last six outs, the Dodgers built their series-winning rally on Kahnle changeups: singles by Hernández and Edman on changeups left up in the zone and a walk by Smith on four changeups out of the zone.
The Lux at-bat against Luke Weaver in Game 5
After the Dodgers loaded the bases against Kahnle, Boone brought in Weaver to face Lux. The average MLB hitter delivers the runner from third with less than two outs 50% of the time. Lux had done so only 35% in the regular season. Only 12 hitters were worse (min. 20 PA).
This time Lux ripped a 2–2 fastball for a sacrifice fly. The key to this at-bat was that the flyball was deep enough to center field not just to score Hernandez but also to advance Edman to third base. Those 90 feet were huge because Edman scored the series-clinching run on a sacrifice fly by Betts.
The World Series exposed a huge difference between the Dodgers and Yankees: athleticism and baseball IQ. In the regular season, Los Angeles was tied with Detroit for the MLB lead in taking the extra base (49% of the time). New York was tied for last with Houston (36%).
4. The maturation of Will Smith
In past postseasons the Dodgers were a quick out while relying heavily on analytics-based scripts. “We probably stuck to scripts a little too much,” Roberts said.
This year they gave Smith more freedom behind the plate to call his own game.
“Yeah, for sure. Definitely,” Smith told me. “That was probably one of the things we talked about early in the year. Going off script. But Mark [Prior], Danny [Lehmann], Connor [McGuiness], the pitchers have been great. It's all been a lot of good communication, conversations before games, in game … trying to figure out best ways to change, or redirect, or whatever it is, or kind of stick with the same plan. It's just a lot of people coming together, talking through stuff.”
A good example: Smith freelanced to throw a 3-and-2 curve to Francisco Lindor in NLCS Game 3 with the bases loaded. Walker Buehler had thrown only six full-count curves to lefties all year. Lindor struck out. I asked Smith if that was an example where he felt more empowered to call his own game.
“Yeah, I feel super confident,” he said. “You know, I'm convicted in it. Just as long as the pitcher's convicted in whatever I put down. If they want to shake, that's fine. Just as long as they're convicted, it's fine.”
5. The Yankees pitched Shohei Ohtani tough
Ohtani’s swing in Games 3 through 5 was clearly compromised after he suffered a left shoulder subluxation. Nonetheless, give New York credit for making it difficult on Ohtani with a mix of pitches, especially down in the zone.
On pitches no higher than 25 inches off the ground—about mid-thigh high and below—Ohtani was 0-for-6 in the World Series and 1-for-17 in the postseason.
6. The ballad of Anthony Banda
The first of seven relievers Roberts called on in Game 5 was Banda, who at this time last year was coaching kids at Higley High in Gilbert, Ariz., and wondering if his professional career was over.
Banda was DFA’d last season after one month with the Nationals, his 10th team in 10 years. Nobody wanted him. At age 30, he spent the rest of the season at Triple-A Rochester, where he posted a 7.58 ERA.
“I don't know what I would have done,” he told me. “I would have probably found myself in Mexico playing ball or something. I felt after that last season, getting my butt whooped all season, it was just like, ‘Man, if I can't even get these guys out, what makes me think I can get to the big-league level and get those guys out?’”
Then one day, while working with high school kids, he had an epiphany.
“I had a moment,” Banda told me, “where I even looked to one of the assistant coaches and I was like, ‘Man, I'm telling them the things that people would tell me all the time.’ And I found myself enjoying it. Seeing the kids have fun … It made a lot more sense.
“I mean, watching the kids, the way they were asking questions and going through the practices and understanding that they could do it … and me showing them that they could do it … It was just a lot of fun, seeing all the kids light up.
“That was something where I'm like, ‘Man, this is fun. This is fun. I really love this.’ And I just started training again.”
Banda signed a minor league deal with Cleveland, his 11th team. He made 12 appearances for Triple-A Columbus and caught the eye of the Dodgers. On May 17, the Dodgers became his 12th team. They traded cash considerations for Banda.
His world was about to change immediately. You can talk all you want about all the money the Dodgers have and spend. But the secret sauce to how the Dodgers have built one of the greatest 12-year runs in baseball history is their player development, both in the minors and majors. They are expert at finding undervalued talent in the draft and on other rosters and bringing the best out of those players. Banda is another example.
Banda could always throw hard and had a good changeup, but he had trouble throwing a good breaking pitch.
“I never had a breaking ball really that was consistent enough for hitters to respect,” Banda said.
The day Banda reported to the Dodgers they had him throw a bullpen session while being recorded by a high-speed video camera known as edgertronic, which shows at thousands of frames per second how a baseball leaves a pitcher’s hand. Banda threw his slider, which he threw with a funky three-finger grip.
“Uh, they laughed at me when I showed them,” he said, “because they couldn't believe I was throwing a slider like that. They changed it right away when they saw it.”
Banda’s problem with his slider was due to the natural movement of his hand and wrist. Banda is a heavy pronator, which means his hand naturally turns outward, which is great for throwing a football or a changeup, but not for throwing a breaking pitch.
“I was always told growing up, ‘You’ve got to get the fingers to the front of the ball,’” Banda said. “I just couldn't do it. I was just like, ‘I don't know how guys do this.’”
Dodgers assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness is the King of Spin. No one in baseball better understands how spin works and how to teach it than McGuiness. He sat down with Banda and showed him edgertronic videos of the breaking pitches of other pitchers who, like him, were heavy pronators.
“They're throwing sliders and curveballs and I'm like, ‘How did they do that?’” Banda says. “They showed me the edgertronics stuff and it just showed that it works off the pronation of your hand instead of getting to the front of the ball. So that’s what really made it click for me and then after that it was just kind of like I got a new toy.
“Yeah, it was fun. It all happened May 19. I wasn't able to see the name of the guys they showed me, but it was a close-up of the hands in a similar arm slot. They have stuff where they can match it with my video. And it was mind blowing when it really, really clicked and I understood it. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this really clicked. I've been taught wrong this entire time.’”
His career was changed. Batters hit .147 against Banda’s new slider, including .125 in the postseason. He threw the pitch 53% of the time in the postseason. It was the toughest slider to hit in the postseason among those thrown at least 60 times.
Banda became one of only five pitchers to appear in four World Series wins without allowing a run (min. batters faced: 14). The others are Rollie Fingers (1972), Mariano Rivera (2009), Joe Kelly (2018) and Will Smith (2021).
World Series Fun Facts
- Freddie Freeman joined Lou Gehrig as the only players to hit four home runs in a World Series while striking out no more than once. Gehrig had no strikeouts in 1928.
- Roberts joined Tony La Russa (2011 Cardinals) as the only managers to win the World Series using five or more pitchers in each victory.
- Roberts is the only manager to win a nine-inning World Series game with eight pitchers, as he did in the clincher.
- The Dodgers in Game 5 became only the third team to win a World Series game by getting out-homered 3–0 (Blue Jays 1993 Game 4 and Yankees 1949 Game 3). They are the first team to win a clincher that way.
- The Dodgers are only the second team to win a World Series clincher by scoring seven runs without a homer and no more than seven hits. The other: the 1919 Pirates.
- Buehler became only the sixth pitcher to win a game as a starter and save the clincher. The others were Grover Alexander for the 1926 Cardinals, Bill Hallahan for the 1931 Cardinals, Gene Bearden for the 1948 Indians, Johnny Antonelli for the 1954 Giants and Madison Bumgarner for the 2014 Giants.
- The Dodgers hit .184 with runners in scoring position, the worst such average for a team that won the World Series since the 2008 Phillies (.167).
- Gerrit Cole has made 339 career starts, postseason included. Game 5 marked the first time he allowed five unearned runs. He is only the ninth pitcher to allow five or more unearned runs in a World Series game, the first since Clem Labine for Pittsburgh in 1960 World Series Game 2 and the first ever to do so facing elimination.
- The Yankees are the first team to lose the final game of the World Series while allowing five unearned runs. The previous high was four, set by the 1911 Giants and matched by the 1925 Senators.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Six Lessons to Learn From the Dodgers’ World Series Win.
